Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Part 1: Mark Carter on investing in value

Episode Date: May 14, 2021

In a two-part interview, human behaviour expert Mark Carter talks about what value really means, how you can create it, and invest in it, for success in every area of your life. What is ‘value’? How do you define value? My guess is that you may struggle to define it. Why? Because the term value has become so overused yet misunderstood. We are constantly asked: What are our values? Are you adding value? What is your value proposition? How are you adding value? We constantly hear about shareholder value, the value of a firm, fair value, and market value. About value creation as another name for wealth creation.  But what is ‘value’ really, and how can you unlock the limitless opportunity it brings? To talk about this and much more is Mark Carter. Mark is an expert in human behaviour, and because of this, he has become one of the most sought after speakers and professional trainers in Australia … particularly in the spheres of leadership, sales and more.  For Mark, it’s all about understanding people. Understanding how they behave, think and make choices, both professionally and personally. It’s this understanding that has seen Mark hold senior and strategic leadership development roles for major global players across the Asia Pacific and Europe and led to him to work on projects where he designed and implemented sales strategies and bespoke methodologies for billion-dollar sales teams across the globe.  Over 20 years, Mark has moved from connecting with people in Europe to connecting with people in their own lives, all as a guest speaker and trainer. Mark has pulled together many of these experiences and learnings into his second book, Add Value, as well as his online academy … which you can find out more about at markcarter.com.au. And if you’re ready to find out how investment can support your growth goals and create the life you were meant to live, join our unique KnowHow Property Freedom Flight program, where I’ll personally guide you through my proven process for property investment success.  To book your ticket or find out more, click here https://knowhowproperty.com.au/freedom-fighters. Enjoy the chat with Mark Carter and make sure you stick around for part two. Get Invested is the leading weekly podcast for Australians who want to learn how to unlock their full ‘self, health and wealth’ potential. Hosted by Bushy Martin, an award winning property investor, founder, author and media commentator who is recognised as one of Australia’s most trusted experts in property, investment and lifestyle, Get Invested reveals the secrets of the high performers who invest for success in every aspect of their lives and the world around them. Remember to subscribe on your favourite podcast player, and if you're enjoying the show please leave us a review. Find out more about Get Invested here https://bushymartin.com.au/get-invested-podcast/  Want to connect with Bushy? Get in touch here https://bushymartin.com.au/contact/  This show is produced by Apiro Media - http://apiropodcasts.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the lines in the book, more or less, is selfies are usually about as purposeful in value as chocolate mirrors or ice cream teapots, right? It's like this idea of selfies. They don't add value, right? Not really. So about 16, 17 years ago, I was coaching sales leaders and trying to help them get more from their team and work with their teams. And I just, reaching for learning and being creative, I asked this manager, define value for me. And it was their answer that kind of caught my attention because they struggled. And I wasn't making them right or wrong.

They said something, and I would say, what else is it? Is that all of it? Were they making them right or wrong? And they kept scrambling to find and not quite feeling they had the definition. And that sent me down this journey of going, that's interesting. I'm going to keep asking this. And I've asked dozens, then hundreds of people, and then in businesses, and the same thing happened.

Welcome to the Get Invested Podcast, where we share great conversations with experts from all walks of life to uncover their secret know-how and where they invest their time, their skills and their money and the benefits that this has created. You see, the truth is that everyone invests. Every minute, every day, we're investing our time, our skills, our energy and our money in something. Some of us are investing consciously, some unconsciously, sometimes for good, sometimes for bad, sometimes for no impact. Get Invested will help you to start living by design, not by default. I'm going to help you to make it happen, not let it happen. You'll hear the top tips on how you can live with conscious intent so that you can live more, work less and

leave a living legacy by investing now. Listen to the show to discover the top tips on how to get started, make the most of your investment journey and ultimately to be living your dream, not someone else's. More episodes can be found on iTunes or at bushymartin.com.au forward slash getinvested. Thanks for listening and now let's get invested. Hi Freedom Fighters. What is value? How do you define value? Well my guess is that you're going to struggle to define this. Why? Because the term value has become so overused, yet misunderstood. Just think about how often we use and hear the word value in our everyday lives. We're constantly asked, what are our values? What's your value proposition? How

are you adding value? We constantly hear about shareholder value, the value of a firm, fair value, fair value, market value, about value creation as another name for wealth creation. So again, what is value and how do you define it? Now various dictionaries define value as the regard that something is held to deserve, the importance, worth or usefulness of something, one's judgment of what's important in life. Value is defined as relative worth, utility or importance The worth, usefulness or importance in comparison with something else The monetary worth of something

And value is the monetary, material or assessed worth of an asset, good or service Generally, value has been taken to mean moral ideas General conceptions or orientations towards the world or sometimes simply interests, attitudes, preferences, needs, sentiments and dispositions. A value is defined as a shared area about how something is ranked in terms of desirability, worth or goodness. But do these definitions really capture the meaning of value in the real world? And how is value measured?

Is it merely price or monetary value? Or is it what someone is just prepared to pay? Or is there more to it? Let's look at a great example of value that I've borrowed from today's guest. So imagine I'm holding an old, worn, second-hand teddy bear. Now the bear is a little over 100 years old. The bear's had six previous owners. The bear's got movable arms and movable legs.

And the thing I love most about the bear is that when you tip him upside down and then straighten him up, he growls. So based on this simple description how valuable do you think the bear is? What value would you put on him? Now I'm going to describe the bear a second time but in order to tell you about the bear we're going to forget about Mr Bear for a minute because I want to start by telling you about Marguerite

You see Marguerite was born in Gingen in Germany way back in 1847 and when she was just 18 months old she suffered a high fever which left her legs paralyzed and severe pain in her right arm. Not a great start to life but Marguerite had a zest and a purpose and a passion so she fought to live normally. Her brothers and sisters would take her to school in a wheelbarrow car and she was actually carried into the classroom. By the age of 15 she learned how to sew and by the age of 17 she became a good seamstress. And not long after that she discovered these pin cushions in the shape of elephants and she had this remarkable and

ingenious idea of creating cuddly children's toys. So she made 2,000 of them and then took them to Leipzig in Germany and they sold like absolute hotcakes. Now at the same time that this was going on in Germany, over in the United States, the sitting president was on a hunting trip, and he was asked to shoot a bear that was tethered to a tree. And he lowered his rifle and he said, that's just not humane. And this earned President Theodore Roosevelt the nickname Teddy Bear. And so the name Teddy Bear also found itself attached to these amazing cuddly toys coming out of Germany. You see, Marguerite's last name was Steiff.

And Steiff bears are the original teddy bears. They're like teddy bear royalty, the aristocracy of the cuddly world. They come with unique identifying symbols and buttons in their ear, and some of them even have birth certificates so that you know what their providence is. marguerite ended up building a company as solid and concrete as her toys were soft and cuddly and the reason the bear i described initially is a little over 100 years old is because it's one

of the earliest 1909 staff models the reason it's only had six previous owners is because you can only get it through auction or diligence of research through a private sale the reason it's got movable arms and movable legs is because marguerite gave her toys this gift that she didn't have and the reason it growls is a nice symbol of the animal's freedom cry so now let me ask you the question again what value would you now put on the teddy bear is it higher than when i've asked you the first time chances are that you now think that teddy has much higher value. Why? Because your perspective has changed. Your perception of the value of the teddy is increased because of the power of the emotional story that's now

attached to him. In this way, value is perceived and it's personal. It's about perception and our perception can change. So value can change. So despite what many economists, statisticians, financial analysts and politicians would have us believe, value's not always rational and it's not always measured in money. But this is where the understanding and appreciation of value gets interesting because we become almost fixated on equating value in monetary numerical terms. And Rory Sutherland's insights on what is value are very informative in this regard, so let's borrow some of them.

He suggests that we've developed a kind of obsession with numerology that finds it absolutely impossible to justify or explain or promulgate any opinion or view or approach or value of anything unless it has numerical backing. Over the years, as scientific approaches have increasingly dominated every field of endeavour, there seems to have grown an assumption that nothing that is unaccompanied by a spreadsheet

can have any validity or true value at all. Consequently, Sutherland suggests that we've inadvertently developed a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, where we've all been so beaten up by the purely rational thinking of scientists, economists and politicians, that we've started to take on the worst qualities of our abusers. Now, as an example of the difference between the reality of value versus the rational, intellectual and scientific numeric approach,

Let's have a look at a game of television's deal or no deal show. And no, I don't watch it. I'd rather watch paint dry, but I digress. See, scientists, economists and financial analysts, getting tongue-tied here, seem to assume that everyone will always choose the rational optimal outcome, weighing up the probabilities of chance and statistics. In fact, it seems like virtually everybody in the world of finance

will assume that this is how everyone weighs up value and will regard the actual behaviour of real contestants as fundamentally irrational and wrong. The hyper-rational player of deal or no deal automatically assumes that $20,000 is worth twice the value of $10,000. But all the evidence of human hedonics indicates that this isn't true because money actually has diminishing marginal utility in that a $20,000 car is not twice as good as a $10,000 car.

And in fact, the way people actually play their game of deal or no deal is almost looking at values in an emotional logarithmic way rather than a proportionate way, which is probably vastly more in keeping with our relationship between money and happiness than the absolutely linear relationship suggested by those in the world of finance. In this way, a contestant settling for a reasonable chance of 10 grand is perceived by most as better value

than taking the risk on an outside chance of 20 grand. It may not be rational, but it's sensible, and it flies in the face of the linear approach to value. The rational linear numeric approach to value also completely fails to account for our feelings of regret, the pain of long-term regret that you experience if you've had one chance in your entire life to go on the game show where you're offered the chance of winning $100,000

and you say no and you only walk away with $100 and then you spend the next 30 years of your life feeling like an idiot. And hence, most of us would think that it's worth taking a certain degree of loss to ensure against that contingency. So it's clear that the assumptions around the totally rational and linear approach to value are completely at odds with human nature and actual behaviour. Now the really interesting thing about all numbers as the absolute measure of value is that numbers dangerously suggest that they're statistically less astute, that all things

must have some sort of linear relationship, whereas actually, in reality, the odds are anything involving human psychology means they're not. and this logical, rational, linear reduction of value to numbers throughout the financial, economic and political sectors has created a mechanistic mindset and culture that disdains ambiguity and compromise which results in an outlook where the ambiguity of life is deeply uncomfortable to these absolutist viewpoints

and it drives a kind of mechanistic reductionist view of life that is very uncomfortable with fluffiness, fuzziness or imposition. And relevant to our discussion here, the famed philosopher Karl Popper once remarked that most things in life sit on a spectrum between clouds and clocks, between meteorology and perfect clockwork engineering. And he claimed that most of the worst mistakes

that are made in life are when we try to treat things that are like clouds as though they were clocks. and the variable nature of value is looking much more like a cloud than a clock and in stark contrast to the current obsession with reducing value to numerical measures is the work of Ludwig van Mises and the Austrian School of Economics who were disdained by other economists because they refused to use mass as they believe that numbers are an entirely inadequate representation of human value and preference

And since economics is all about human value and preference, it's completely wrong to use numbers in economics so they use thought experiments instead. So von Mises made the assertion that human preferences and perceptions of value are ordinal, not scalar. It's completely wrong to depict human preference in numerical terms. Another interesting historical figure who demands that numbers be treated with some scepticism

is British economist Charles Goodhart who's attributed with what has become known as Goodhart's Law which states that any numerical metric that becomes a target loses its value as a metric or in other words the second something becomes specifically pursued its value as a useful metric has disappeared. Let's share a couple of examples of the manipulative absurdities

that result when a numeric value becomes a performance target. Now, if you can remember what it's like to fly, airline punctuality is a case in point. If you've ever noticed that your plane occasionally pushes back from the departure gate and then you just go for a taxiing ride around the airport for 25 minutes, that's probably because airline departure times are often measured from the time the plane pushes back from the departure gate. Similarly, railway companies in some countries will cancel trains

for the simple reason that a train that doesn't run can't actually be late. So you can see that once you actually take a value metric and make it a target, its value, its informational value, is more or less completely destroyed. Now Einstein supposedly had above his desk a sign that said, not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. And this is an important point when it comes to value because here's the trap.

If you find yourself obsessing about something simply because they present themselves easily in numerical form when actually to the consumer or to the human being they're not very important at all, then you can be missing out in what is really valuable. Again, trained punctuality is a good example of this. In many countries around the world, trains running on time are pursued with absolute linear obsession to the point where it's meaningless to the average train passenger.

If you're four minutes late getting into the city centre and that upsets you a whole day, well, quite frankly, that's not the train company's problem, that's your problem. Yet trains running on time is pursued to a point of absolute absurdity, whereas far more important value measures like how enjoyable and pleasant is your journey and is there a table because they don't submit to the same regular generation of numerical stats those important items of true value get completely neglected.

Now for me the whole point of rail travel is that there's a table that's why you have trains because it's the only form of transport where you can actually read, work, type on your laptop and treat it like an office. So the idea that all the effort and money is being spent making the train arrive two minutes earlier while at the same time they're ripping out the tables is exactly the kind of problem that occurs when atrocious metrics lead to a massive destruction of real value.

The other problem is that people tend to look at numbers with an assumption of linear proportionality but an awful lot of human behaviour and perceived emotional value isn't proportionate at all. And the flow on from this is that if you obsess about numbers and you obsess about clocks not clouds what you tend to assume erroneously is you obsess about the idea that proportionate inputs are required to achieve the same relative increase in value. But this is not always the case

as small interventions can often result in massive increases in perceived value. The other thing that can affect and change the perceived value of something are the framing effects. And video conferencing is a great example. Prior to the pandemic, video conferencing had largely failed due to the comparative framing effects. Video conferencing was always positioned as the poor person's travel rather than the rich person's phone call.

the cheap cost saving meeting alternative to travelling was a logical positioning of video conferencing's value but it was interpreted as a form of business interaction for people who can't be trusted to get on a plane it was value positioning it was a bit like comparing margarine to butter a kind of inferior substitute when you couldn't afford the real thing

so we don't really trust you Bushy to fly to Sydney because you'd only raid the minibar and get inebriated in the airport club lounge. So you just go down to the basement office and enjoy a very pixelated stop-start, freeze-frame conversation with your potential client for 25 minutes. That's a framing effect. But paradigm shifts in thinking about what is valuable

could also quickly change perceived value, as we've seen with COVID. And the inability to travel because of health issues means that suddenly overnight, video conferencing through providers like Zoom has now become the preferred way to communicate. It's got much higher value. So if you're concerned about creating and delivering value, you need to be spectacularly alert to anything involving human psychology

as the frame of reference can very suddenly change. So if you're looking at all your numbers and you're making a lot of money and then suddenly the value paradigm shifts the balance, The balance sheet's not going to tell you this, so you absolutely need a really good understanding of changing human values. Let's take the example of McDonald's. Effectively, everybody assumed for many years that Dinah's concept of value focused on choice. You had eggs in six ways, over easy, sunny side up, you name it,

and you could make substitutions of one kind of sausage for another kind of sausage. but then mcdonald's came along and said no it's not about choice it's about speed so they cut the menu down to six items and they prepared them so fast that there was no delay so when we're contemplating what is valuable we need to constantly bear in mind that in every business the paradigms and the units of measure of value by which people make comparisons are actually subject to very rapid and unpredictable change. So actually understanding what is the current measure of value as well as what it might be is vital to sustainable success. And we need to remember that if we're purely looking at the health of our business in numerical

and financial terms, then we're missing a huge area of where both value resides and might be created, or indeed, might be destroyed. Another good example of the difference between numeric measures and actual perceived value is the TV show Top Gear. And though he's been vilified as a bit of a larrikin, I can't help but enjoy Jeremy Clarkson's wit. What Clarkson used to do when he reviewed virtually every car was to make the valuable point that the numerical metrics representing a car are very good or very bad, but his emotional

reaction to the vehicle may be entirely different. So he'd say this car is slower, it's worse at accelerating, it's worse at cornering, it's actually more expensive to buy, but I prefer it. And equally, he did the same thing the other way around. This car is cheaper, it's faster, but I can't stand it. What he did is actually reinforce a very valuable point that quite a lot of what humans value, which reinforces the approach of Balnesis, can't be explained perfectly in numerical terms. There isn't a metric for a perfect car. There isn't a metric for beauty. Things that we value are actually difficult to define, but absolutely vital to our appreciation of anything. So it's clear that value is a multifaceted, varied and continuously changing

entity that's difficult to find but crucial in every facet of our lives if we're going to make our way in the world. And the best person to help us understand and appreciate value is today's guest, Mark Carter. Mark is an expert in human behaviour and value creation and because of this he's become one of the most sought after speakers and professional trainers in Australia, particularly in the spheres of leadership, sales and many other areas. For Mark, it's all about understanding people, understanding how they behave, think and make choices, both professionally and personally.

It's this understanding that has seen Mark hold senior and strategic leadership development roles for major global players across the Asia-Pacific and Europe, and led him to work on projects where he designed and implemented strategies and bespoke methodologies for billion dollar teams across the globe over 20 years mark has moved from connecting with people in europe to connecting with people in their own lives all as a guest speaker and a trainer mark has pulled together many of these experiences and learnings into his second book add value as well as his online academy which you can find more about at markcarter.com.au and mark has added so much value on our deep dive conversation that i've decided to split it into two parts so in the first part of

our high value chat today mark talks about why investing in creativity is important why the question what if is fundamental to your success what has your energy got to do with venice we talk about the science of motivation and the three motivational styles and six key categories. We look at what is meant by face the mirror and much more. If you'd like to discover your values, find your worth and gain fulfilment in your personal and professional life, then do yourself a favour and grab yourself a copy of Mark's latest book, Add Value. Just jump on

www.addvalue.markcarter.com.au or click the link in the show notes. And if you're ready to find out how investment can support your growth goals and create the life you were meant to live, come and join me on our unique Know How Property Freedom Flight program where I'll personally guide you through my proven process

for property investment success. To book your ticket or to find out more, just click the link in the show notes at knowhowproperty.com.au forward slash freedom fighters. Or just visit knowhowproperty.com.au. And before we get into today's great chat, I want you to remember Einstein's immortal words. Try not to become a man of success, but a man of value.

Look around at how people want to get more out of life than what they put in. Because a person of value will give more than they receive. And this is definitely true of today's guest. So get invested in this great chat with Mark Carter. Welcome back, Freedom Fighters. Now, value is a word that's bandied around willy-nilly to the point where it's become almost overused and very misunderstood. We've all heard it. You need to add value.

What's your value proposition? But what does value really mean? And why is it important to you to invest in creating value in everything you do and everyone you react with? To help us really understand the benefit of value adding and how to actually do it, we're privileged to be joined by the go-to guru in all things value, Mark Carter. So welcome, and let's get invested, Mark. Hey, great to be on, Bushy. Thanks so much. Awesome, mate.

Now, for those who haven't been around, and they'd have to be living under a rock not to know who you are, Mark, given how active you've been in the space for decades now, but for those that haven't, can you start off by giving us a bit of a rundown on who you are, what you do, and most importantly, why you do what you do, Mark? Yeah, sure. I often joke, I was born in England, raised in Scotland, fermented in Europe and through several round world trips, living out of cases. And then Australia has been home for almost two decades, quite simply, mangroves don't grow in Edinburgh, right? So as a professional, I've worked in the field of learning. I'm a learning and development professional, and I have been for almost a quarter century

now, 24 years, specializing in human behavior. I've headed up learning for some big companies. And then as a speaker, author and director of my own learning academy now for 16, 17 years or so, you know, I contribute quite a bit to mainstream media, which, as you said, people might see me there, authored two books and done a TEDx talk on the very subject you introduced beautifully, which is this concept of value and even our values. And I guess what I then do is I take that knowledge and I work with individuals and businesses to create continual pathways of continual development. So with businesses around themes like culture, leadership, sales, efficiencies, for individuals, it's around pathways of personal and professional success. and I think the the question you said why do I do it most importantly is I was lucky enough somebody else found my path for me an old boss of mine saw my potential and made me a training manager for Contiki back in Europe and I said yes at the time because it sounded fun and I knew I'd

get to play in a game against the Florentines in soccer and she she reached my arm and said no you're going to do this role because you belong to people and that was my first role in training and development. And here I am 24 years later, still in my field. So why do I do it? Because I genuinely love what I do. I found my path and I, you know, I just keep walking that pathway. That's why I do it. Yeah, love. Interesting that someone else saw on you what you hadn't realized at that point, Matt. Before we sort of go back into your history, just expand on that little bit what what do you think she saw and uh how did she come at that and then when did the penny drop for you yeah sure i i'd already worked at that time i'd worked for contiki for five years

the first three being on site as a site rep and then two years on the road and then so being asked to train the next leaders coming in was something often that you'd be on the road a bit longer because it's quite a meaty role in fact i can comfortably say now in 24 years as a learning development professional i'm yet to face a gig as complex or as complicated as that one i just didn't realize it back then so i think what joe saw in me was what she'd seen she'd been my boss for three years on sites and then kind of going onto the road and she just knew me well and she to this day she's still the only person i actually refer to as boss right so it says a lot already and I think what she saw was my ability what I now understand I think is my ability to be with

people to spend time with people to look for the best in people to try and encourage the best out of them and potentially my energy in doing that you know it's something I get I get comments about often whenever I do a keynote gig is where'd you get your energy from or where'd you get your enthusiasm from and I share a story to that I said my answer is Venice and there's a reason why but simplified you choose it and i think she saw that in me before i appreciated it myself but you got to think this is like i was 26 at the time you know so now i get it now i really get myself well and i think that's what she saw yeah love it love it well we're going to come back to that story on venice during your journey mate because you've got got my curiosity intrigue right there and

having been to venice a couple of times it's a a very interesting place mate uh so uh but before we get to the Venice part of the journey, what I wouldn't mind you doing for myself and the listeners is to wind it way back as far as you'd like to go and talk us through where you've invested your time, your energy and your money over your life journey so far and focusing on the good times and the bad times, what you've learned from them and how did that shape you and get you to where you are today? yeah excellent i think if i go really right back i would say it's actually been a continual path anyway because where i've invested my time energy and money has always been around two things and

that's my own growth and creative energy or creativity and even back in school so i had a pretty you know i moved to scotland from england so i was kind of bullied quite a bit i found my path and things that other people maybe didn't include in things like drama and writing and the creative things, which back then wasn't really shared as much, but I always loved them. And I think that's something that stayed with me. I continually have invested my time in creative projects. And the reason I say this is it's quite important to pick up because what I've also learned is that a lot of people will sacrifice that because creative inputs don't always deliver results straight away. And even with businesses that I work with, sometimes they sacrifice

investing time into creativity because it doesn't give a win immediately. And so I can see that for myself, I've definitely continually invested in my creative thinking, my creative projects, even if it doesn't seem to be fruitful initially, it's going to lead to something, even if it's just learning. And that's, I think it's something that's really been critical for my entire life one duration. I think if I go back to like school and studies, I was always a fast student and a fast learner. I was probably lazier than I could have been in my studies. You know, if I'm being honest with myself at school, if I'd studied harder, I could have got better grades. I had decent enough grades. I could have gone to university. But again, I grew up in Scotland

in the mid 80s. The economic climate wasn't that great. And I probably sacrificed some of that continual learning in through through um like educational systems and academic systems because i didn't necessarily see that at the time that was going to add to a success immediately i think given your energy you probably would have bored you senseless too i would have thought mate well you know what it's funny i think it might have what i found that was later in life i flagged this again it's funny because later in life there's been definitely times not so much now But when I was in my field for five, six, seven years, and particularly when I became a speaker to start with, there was definitely some people in the business arena that still expected to see a university degree for credibility. Now, as I'm sure you're aware, that's changed massively now, right?

In the last 10 years, the last decade, that's massively changed. I land on a really healthy balance, and that is that there is absolute credibility in vocational education and training and academic training. as much as there is in entrepreneurial thinking and innovative groundbreaking stuff. And this is an important one, I think, for the times we live in, because I think a lot of people, particularly coming through a learning and look at entrepreneurs that don't go to uni and they want to accelerate their learning and you go, well, you can accelerate it, but you can't cut it short and don't write off. I mean, all things being equal, if you've got somebody that's done four years invested,

they're smart, invest their time through a degree and they continue learning through entrepreneurial thinking that is going to be better potentially than just courses by yourself alone so i think there's this healthy balance that i've landed on for myself so i regularly do courses that are quite academic i regularly stretch myself and learning but it was something that at the time when i was at school i didn't necessarily fully appreciate i've got a different perspective of it now obviously that's what life does for you yeah you make a really interesting point there because i mean i've been to uni and i i love learning i'm not just you know the day i don't learn as a day they'll put me in a box i think mark but um but what i've found around

particularly academic learning it actually can actually quash creativity yeah and channel thinking and put your thinking into boxes that that stop you asking why and what i love about what you've done is you know that there's no greater teacher than life and if you've got the energy you have and the ability to because you're running fast particularly early i could see you being someone who really used to bounce around you'd be absorbing and like a living sponge so you'd be picking up stuff that fueled that creativity that's inherent in you that would have probably been potentially extinguished or at least lessened if you had jumped into a more traditional academic type pathway yeah your thoughts on that i i agree with that actually

i think there's definitely and and this is something as well even academia has changed a lot significantly even the learning style you think the old style of being lectured at in classrooms that's so far gone now like the learnings that you get in academic systems beautifully so are now more experiential more interactive so those systems they're slow moving systems but they've adapted to and i think that's why now for where we're at right now i think if you find the right institution with a course that generally interests you there's value in academic thinking but it doesn't have to be that as standalone absolutely i agree that there's times that academic thinking can squash our creativity i've never experienced that firsthand

if i go back you know there's been times where people may not have engaged me back in the day early because i didn't have the degree and i think now that's their loss because i think the value i would have brought through fresh thinking was exactly what they were looking for but because they were hung up on the degree yeah they they missed out on that but it didn't quash my own path in keeping up with that like just being creative and going learning i mean example i'm doing right now i'm learning french now that's academic it's following a curated courseware system it's academic thinking but learning a language it just blows your brain wide open in so many other ways and simultaneously that i'm doing all these creative projects i think they

go hand in hand it's just finding a balance for yourself that you feel fits and not allowing that to squash your energy or your creativity. Love it. Mate, I'm going to talk to you after the show about where you're learning French because I've got that on my hit list this year, mate. So I love the French language. It's the most beautiful, poetic.

It's going to sound crass when it comes out of my mouth, but when you hear the French talk, I'm in love when they open their mouth, mate. Yes. So there's something pretty special about the French language. But I digress, mate. So back on the journey then. So you left school, obviously.

Talk us through where that went to and the learnings up until Contiki and then beyond. Yeah, sure. I mean, that's pretty quickly surmised in some ways. I left school, started working at age 16, right, which is really young. I went into banking. I did two years in banking, which was good. I even started doing kind of banking qualifications, but I got bored. Then what I did, I moved into insurance, and I stayed there for about two years.

And then guess what? I got bored. And then I moved down to London. So then I'm looking at 20, got on 21 when I moved to London and moved into my first role in sales and media and advertising. And that was good. It was a good change. I mean, that was flying the coop, right? Going out by yourself to some degree. And again, I did that for two and a half years or so. And it was at that point, a family friend had actually introduced me to Contiki as a company. I'd never heard of them in Scotland. like who are these people in australia back then everybody knew of them in scotland i'm like no idea and actually i'll share this is a fun story actually years later when i was then an operational supervisor and i was a training manager and operational supervisor i was in the office and i don't know how it came about but one of my friends actually had managed to track down the notes from my initial interview to get a job yeah yeah yeah i don't know if i've even shared this this is the first actually and they shared it i was laughing because the notes i couldn't agree more the notes said it was like not verbatim but it was along the lines of great guy really great

energy hasn't got a clue what we do and you know when i think back i go yeah you're right it was like you know it's it's just travel living and working overseas cool but i didn't really get the gist of the whole model that contiki is not like australians and kiwis do you know and so i got that job landed and then here's i guess this is where my life changed significantly and i didn't necessarily again appreciate the time but i mean i stayed there for 10 years i was with contiki for 10 years which is a massive stint when you look at that industry and you look at those sorts of things and then to be their trainer manager i ran training for four years consecutively which again back then was you know it was you know people might do one or two but certainly not four

so that that career change call it what you like and it wasn't even a career it was a lifestyle change in choice to do something get out of the uk and go and explore really that's what it was and to be frank that's probably what it remained as for 10 years yeah i was absorbing i love the words you use there bishan that is i absolutely do absorb things i absorb experiences i make point of observing that and not equating that to a monetary value this is a big learning as well and i've battled this myself because take my my eldest brother i've got two brothers yeah my eldest brother is very successful in financial institutions director of every major bank you think of in the uk at some point or another for uh business lending like super smart and that's

all he's done and i had this conversation because when i look at fiscal well-being and smartness he's my kind of one of those people in my world. And then I look at mine where I've been the opposite. I've been really lapsed a days ago. And he made a point to me a long time ago that really helped me, which was, and he said, Mark, you've got to understand if you didn't live the life you did, you wouldn't be who you are now. And that is so true. And I couldn't, he really helped articulate that for me is that we all have our own journeys to live. And I think my fiscal wellbeing will come later in life. But if I hadn't done the life I had lived as a nomad, getting those experiences, I wouldn't be as good as what I do now

because I bring those experiences to everything I do and it's what sets me apart as a point of difference. Exactly. Without them, I'd be the same as everybody else. So it's not about living my life the same. Does that make sense? 100% makes sense. And I think getting paid to explore the world

and experience a constantly changing lifestyle and also mixing closely with a bunch of strangers effectively who are crammed together for anywhere between a week and a month travelling around on a bus or a boat in Europe would be an absolute oxy-welder in terms of learning about human behaviour and human psychology, I would have thought, Mark. You know what, actually, we use it,

my agents use it in my intro as well. I often say, and I say it affectionately, the contiki tours it was like a 13 meter long petri dish experiment in human human behavior right and you so you take i'm now accredited in a whole load of recognized behavioral tools and sciences and stuff and when i went and learned them because i did those learnings after leaving contiki but it was like being plugged into the matrix because all it gave me was a language and framework around things i'd identified for myself because i had to i'm like oh that's what you call it oh that's what you call it but i'd already built models and way to train people or experience

with customers around that stuff and so it was a great experience but i have to say this as well you know when you go on these sorts of journeys it wasn't uh you're paid but you're not really paid mate we get paid something like 20 a day to look after 50 people 24 hours good grief right and it was back then certainly i mean things have changed over years but back then it was very much about the lifestyle and the experiences, and it certainly wasn't necessarily a career at that point. You could lead to that. You stay in it and you lead to it.

There's ways to do that. But in the early days, the first couple of years, it's not a fiscal thing. That's not why you do it. No. You're there to get the experiences. And there's no better experiences than travel, and Europe's a fantastic place to do it

given that there's a whole melting pot of very different cultures in very close proximity uh mate and then you throw in people from all over the world in that bus you're talking about uh we're all strangers and and going through their own challenges uh tell us some of the stories i'd love to share some of the good and bad stories because there must have been some crackers that came out of it oh man i got so many right i mean because then you do tours the whole europe eastern europe i'll tell you this i love this one the one year somebody in marketing and contiki and going back to 96 it would be a 96 97 somebody in marketing decided let's create a new tour and let's call it bohemian rhapsody you know like

the queen song and we do it through bohemia right and so they went out they packaged this tour together they put it in the brochure and they sold it great but the thing is nobody had actually driven it now we knew those cities but nobody had driven in that order and we're doing it in reverse audio and so they gave me the first one to do and this is back in the day i literally had to do all the logistics for that tour on a live tour i've got 35 or so paying passengers and i'm doing all the directions i'm faxing them back to london i'm trying to create excursions to give extra activities people can do and so i'm literally and it's it sounds ridiculous but it's things like okay we're gonna traverse through a country do we need to pay a tax going through

there i don't know do we need do we need to pay tolls i don't know we've never driven through that way before where's the where do we fuel where do we take a bathroom stop i've got no idea we're gonna figure that out i guess you know and this is this is back in the days before gps before google this is this is out with the street directories and talking to people to work it out exactly but i've got to share this bit with you so i created this excursion i thought some fun stuff and i knew we could do a dinner cruise in budapest but i had no idea how much we were to sell it for whatever And my boss had given me a green light, just be reasonable, pack it. So I sold this dinner cruise on the Danube River in Budapest for something like $22, $23 at a time.

But my negotiation skills were magnificent. I negotiated at this much better rate. And I kid you not, at the end, we went to pay the provider. And I've got this wad, like two wads of local currency, foreigns in my hand. And we felt bad. I said to my driver, let's just take the group out. So we went to this nightclub. and I just put two wads of money on the counter,

and I said, this is my group. Rope us off. Tell us when that's spent. Now, we had a coach-free day the next day, so that's why we could. My driver had the day off. Anyway, the following day, we go to leave Hungary. We go in a different exit way,

and I only have to pay a tax to leave through that border, and I'd spent all my Hungarian government. I had to cash up an American dollar's traveler's check, and this is why a classic example of going to market too soon, right, without all the details you know it was a great experience though it was a great experience though and i think on that tour the one thing that i was annoyed at myself about that tour was we got lost which is a cardinal sin you bleed time and the one day we got kind of lost not badly but 20 minutes 25 minutes or so i knew we'd taken the wrong road on the way to auschwitz but auschwitz

concentration camp was a major draw for that you know it's such a place to go it's a really yeah um somber place but important one yeah you know to go to we bled a bit of time that day so you know but my tour was very forgiving they got it it was good so that you know it's things like that would happen all the time i could share so many stories stories or experiences but that's always a classic that springs to mind well i mean i'm guessing here that the whole experience would have taught you to be able to think on your feet pivot and switch and change direction on a dime yes and and and that's sort of under a fair bit of pressure and a fair bit of expectation actually so i'd imagine that ability to think very quickly and be very enterprising

at the drop of a hat would be skills that would have carried right through to what you're doing today i i incorporate and build this sort of stuff into all the frameworks i build like my sales models my operational efficiency leadership models you know and and it's a great point when when we're training the leaders back for Contiki, you know, and there's other people doing those roles as well. But for me, I would say the most important thing for me to really train and develop them in was one question. What if? Cause there's a, you're going to plan, you're going to learn your logistics. You're going to know how to plan and prepare. You're going to learn to deliver Polish city tours, and you're going to learn the price of everyone and maps from know your way

around Europe, like a champion, you're going to deliver history talks and all this stuff. but what if what if your coach breaks down and you're stuck on a roadside for 13 hours longer what if you get passengers run over by traffic in a local city or you know worse what if what if what if because it's the what ifs you can't prepare for and that is a that absolutely is one of the most powerful lessons that that position that life style and then training others taught me was the what if being able to adapt being able to think on your feet being able to problem solve being able to stay calm when things are burning all around you you know that what if was one of those most powerful lessons i think back then as well yeah i love that and

it's it's interesting you you talk about in that context because in our in the way we help uh investors because their specialization is in the property arena uh we do the what ifs right up in an early and it's always plan for the best and then expect that's plan for the worst and then expect the best and then you know you're going to be okay because you've considered all the what-ifs which means you've got a contingency or a plan of attack when they do occur and then you don't need to worry because everything's going to be under control and the peace of mind that comes from doing those what-ifs uh you can can make a big difference to how you're enjoying the moment so uh yeah i love that mate that well and that gives me the

perfect segue to return back to that little uh little teaser you gave us about venice discussion i'm not going to let you get away with that one talk to us about venice yeah i share this as keynote actually because it's as i said one of the questions i get a couple of questions regularly after especially keynote stage presentations one is where do i get my energy from to which my answer is venice and here's the the story of that you know venice is one of those cities it's an amazing place it shouldn't exist it does a tribe veneti tribe built their houses to escape wars right that's where the city gets its name from and it's built on these canals and all the rest of it now my first visit I remember it well I walk into St. Mark's Square I had hair

like Matthew McConaughey back in the day right and I've got my photo with the pigeons eating out my hand and stuff and that's all cool but then you know you go three or four times and then it floods and it's exciting because the water floods from underneath and you take your shoes off and roll your trousers up and off you go and you know so and you do this over a period of time but then when you've been a dozen times and then you know floods again and actually it's pretty dirty water and oh god there's a dead pigeon marinating and you can't help but walk in it because the wooden platforms they put out can't fit all the travelers right and then after 14 15 trips oh why is it every time i come to venice something gets lost or stolen like i and it's not a slur it's just a

reality and if i have to go and spend my time in police stations trying to get passports replaced what a nightmare venice is wearing me down after 20 check why is it whenever i come to venice i'm having a battle with some of the local surprise they're contracted but if i get there right early i'm there two minutes early hey marco fantastic to see you again unfortunately the last group they're running late so now we're gonna cut her you're right short by five minutes if i get there a minute late hey marco hey fantastic to see you again unfortunately you were late we were of course on time we're always on time so now we're gonna have to cut your ride short by five minutes and i'm always battling to get you know it sounds horrendous it's just part

of lifestyle over there but after more than 20 trips like 22 trips i'm worn down and i send my group off for free time but i could just see something clicked in my brain that they were not as excited as i was when i had hair like matthew mcconaughey and pigeons on my shoulder and they need to be because it's freaking Venice, right? And I stopped a guy and his answer is what woke me up. He said, oh, yeah, it's cool. It's a great city. I'm sure it's fine, like you say, though.

And it was because my energy, not consciously but unconsciously, had gotten less after so many trips and being beaten down by the city and it woke me up and I went, damn, that's bad. I need to be as excited about Venice every time as if it's my first time because it's these people's first time and I need to give it my all. And I've taken that philosophy to everything. If I'm on a sales call at 9 a.m., 10 a.m., noon, 5, 6 p.m., 7 p.m., so what? It doesn't matter if it's 100 calls for me today.

It's that person's first conversation with me. It's the first time they're getting it with me. And same at my – so why am I so present? Why do I bring my energy? Venice, it's my energy. I must choose to give my best. That's why. Love it.

That's a really good analogy and one that I think is going to be very relevant to the listeners because there's a lot of the Get Invested audience that are middle management, career-focused, time poor and have been working in an industry for many years. And there's that sense of repetition that creeps in and you feel like you're sort of going through the motions. yeah for those that are in that situation and they're earning really good incomes and that income can help sort of be funneled into other things that are that they can invest in that are they're going to generate their wealth but the grass always looks greener and the the grass that you're currently cutting can look pretty boring and mundane what do you say to those people in terms of how how how can they get motivated and stay motivated both in themselves and the people around them that they're working with.

What's your thoughts around that? Yeah, I've got a couple. I mean, to tie it up nicely, which links into this, that story with Venice, is that complacency, when you work with behavior and you understand, complacency is normal, right? And that's why I actually use creativity with businesses by mixing things up. Injecting chaos is what breaks complacency. It's a strategy you use consciously.

And the same is true for us as individuals. We get to know our roles so well that we shortcut or we kind of just take things for granted. And so I would say the first thing is like, Venice, catch yourself on your own complacencies is the first thing. Because they're not bad. Complacencies aren't bad. They're normal. We all have them.

The trick is recognizing where we're becoming complacent, stagnant, or stale and injecting a little bit of creativity in our own life. Now, you could then take the same message if you're a leader or a manager and you're working with others you can take that principle for starting with them as well if people are stagnant stale use all the creative tools in your kit to help people see things in a fresh light or to keep growing does that make sense so that's the first thing i would say is recognizing those complacencies yeah the the second though and you use the word then i love and it's this word motivation and you know as a field i work in i know there's people that when they hear the word

they think of the kind of candy floss surface stuff that doesn't meaning their motivation is a science the way i work with it certainly is and you can break it down into three styles there's biological if you're hungry you'll eat that's if you're thirsty you drink that's motivation all right let's leave that to one side there's external motivation and if you are a manager working for a business we're all doing that because you're you're being paid a salary for your time that's motivation that's a drive that's external if you're in sales businesses is we pay commissions and remuneration or incentives. They're external motivations.

And anybody who's got kids, though, would maybe understand. I don't, but if you've got kids, there's a problem with external, not problem, but the challenge with external motivation is if whatever you give this time has got to be better next, try telling your kid you're giving one lollipop to do something this time. Next time, it's better to be two. Right? Lollipops. So external motivation works.

Yes, it does. However, you're left with a third layer, And that's internal motivation, intrinsic motivation, because internal motivation is the fire that sets the solar light. And that is true for yourself if you're a leader, a manager, and your people. And the thing with internal motivation is it changes at different stages of life. So again, if I make it personal, my motivations and drivers as a mid-20-something working for Contiki in Europe and traveling around the world, you can imagine a very different

as a 50, 51-year-old professional building a business in Australia, my motivations have changed. They do. And so I think the thing there is when you can really look in a mirror and tap into your true internal motivations, that can help. And then the same for your people, not to expect or think that they all have the same drive. And a classic way to think about that in business, especially sales, people think people are driven by money. Well, maybe so, but it may not be their main driver and so we've got to ask questions to identify it and it's simple to break down there's a model by edward spranger who set this framework and he can't you take motivation you could ask people what motivates them you might get a thousand answers from a thousand people but you can put

them into six categories a bit like you ask somebody where they want to travel they might say a thousand cities but you can put them into continents yeah same is true for motivation so internal motivation. Maybe I'm driven by utility resources, right? Financial return, all that sort of stuff that comes under utility, but that's only one. Maybe I'm driven by knowledge, learning, continual learning. Maybe I'm driven by social. Uh, I want to make an impact to other people. I want to like work and help develop other people. Maybe I'm driven by aesthetics. I want new experiences. Maybe I'm driven by individualistic, which is devising and implementing a winning strategy. Or maybe I'm driven by traditional beliefs and that's like a value

system by which I base all my decisions on. So you've got those six sort of buckets and we may have one or two of those that are prominent at any moment in time. That's true for you as an individual. It's true for me and it's true for the people in your team. Learn to ask better questions and really get to understand what's driving someone and talk to them in a way that helps them tap into that for themselves and reward them, change reward and recognition to align with that because it's not always about, hey, here's a voucher for $100 to go and spend something.

Maybe that reward for that individual to help keep them motivated is by achieving these things, we'll put you on a learning course. By achieving these things, we'll give you half a day to go and spend time working with a charity that you want to support. Do you see what I mean? And so you can adapt the reward, the recognition, the language, the way we speak and work with people based on what's really driving them and ourselves. That's just – and it's another tool or method. It's certainly part of tools I'm accredited with and it underpins some of the behavioral work I do.

Yeah, I love that. Is there anything that you can sort of just whet the listener's appetite with in relation to – because that self-awareness, we're very good at seeing where other people's motivations are and where they're at and what they're doing. A lot of us aren't so good at looking in the mirror and understanding where we're at and where we fit and how that's changing. what's their best way of of really starting to self-reflect and and understand where they fit and therefore once they've understood that what that then means in terms of what they need to be doing from there yeah yeah you even said some of the words then we we say them often but i say them and mean them that is face the mirror when i when i roll out training actually around let's say productivity in a toolkit how do i become more efficient this here's a toolkit of 10 ways right

And they're very simple. But the 10th one is face the mirror. Because let's be frank, you actually don't need me as an external consultant to come in and tell you where you're bleeding your time. You just need to be looking in the mirror more often and being honest with yourself instead of putting on the bravado. And how often are you actually literally looking at yourself in a mirror and being honest? So that's the first one is not just using those words, but taking the action aligned

with those words. Face the mirror. Take an inventory. Stock take. Be honest with yourself. you know being candid with yourself being candid with other people and inviting the same of other people a couple of things you can do to help with that sometimes we may turn to people in our circle for input and the danger with that sometimes is we're asking the same people and their friends

and they may tell us what we want to hear be brave to ask people that you respect who don't necessarily agree with you and identify different masterminds for different inputs for different parts of your life. I'm not going to ask, you know, I wouldn't, and I've said this to you as well, Bushy, I wouldn't encourage people to come and ask me about financial wealth or investments, not my bag. You want to ask me about investing my time and energy in a resource and learning, ask me that. But ask another specialist about what they're good at and then make sure they're people you think are credible and will listen to and you don't have to be best mates with them. And then be brave enough to do something with that input. So that's something as well

that I would encourage. That's a way of bringing the idea of facing the mirror to life. Build a mastermind crew or group of people around you. Make it people that you're willing to listen to and make it different experts for different things and listen to the input they give you. You know, again, I relate this to a quick story in Contiki. My first tour, at the end of the tour, I had seven or eight people give pretty much the same feedback on the feedback form. And it wasn't bad, but it was something along the lines of, Mark's a great guy, but he shows favoritism. and I wasn't. Now, I could ignore that feedback. I could ignore it, but what I did was I asked myself a question and said, okay, what am I doing that makes seven or eight people think I'm showing

favoritism? And then I got it. It's behavioral sciences. It's DISC or any of those models. I was being outward going and spending time, more time on travel days, talking the outward going buggy people like myself, and I was leaving the people that were kind of internal and silent and peace because i didn't want to disrupt their peace or equilibrium yeah they were interpreting that favoritism job done so it's that you see what i mean so it's listening to the feedback when you get it reflecting on that feedback ask for it get it reflect on it act on it and how did that then moving forward the learnings from it how did that impact on how you traded uh can take your guests in the future that we're a little bit more reserved well you're not perfect because the

moment i got that as part of one thing you learn on your on those tours is the most important talk you actually do is your first day talk to set the scene take control and build the rapport of the group and i learned to build into my first day tour i had three rules which my kind of starter point which already has got everybody's attention but then my um my piece around that learning from that was hey it's day one i'd learn everybody's names i'd know their first names i get them introduce myself and then i tell them all their first names you each have equal access to me in time but you just need to ask i have a tendency to lean in and spend time with people that are out with growing bubbly but just ask you'll get it i never had that problem again yeah love it

love it such as such a simple uh communication that sets the expectations that then puts everyone on the same page mate love it that's it there's the word right there you use it in communication you can preempt so many problems you know if you're a leader and you've got challenge with team, have candid conversations, preempt it. You know, there's a thing about fear and things that grow and get bigger. It grows because we don't call it out. Candor, right? A lack of candid conversation. Elephants aren't prone to small spaces. The elephant in the room is only there because people let it grow. Candor is a gift. Candor implies equality, right? And so have an honest, straight shooting conversations and calling out the very thing takes the fear out of it.

Hence, you take that and put it into your communications for sure. Yeah, I love that. Love it. Now, that's brilliant, mate. I've sidetracked you a fair bit there, which was awesome because it dovetailed beautifully into the experiences you've had with Contiki. Let's talk about life after Contiki and how that sort of got you to where you currently are and what you're doing. Yeah. well i think the um my my biggest challenge actually leaving contiki funnily enough was

i've been living like a nomad out of suitcases for so long so blending into what we call somewhat normal life was a bit of a challenge for me yeah i spent a year and a half on visas between australia new zealand then finally moved to australia with my partner at the time and then got back into the role of typical work you know um and i have to say looking back now That was quite a stressful time for a couple of years because, you know, there's times when I was on training tours. You're having breakfast in Budapest, lunch in Vienna, dinner in Prague. You know, when you're on tours, people are on holiday

and generally having a good time. That one face in reality, I've got to go to work, pay the bills, pay the taxes. Big adjustment. Yeah, and it was things like even getting my visas, right? I had to get police background checks for countries I'd lived in for so long. The paperwork to compile to pull in my visa application was a nightmare. but then blending in was just, it was some time. And, and again, I think there's still times even

now over 20 years later where there's remnants of that, that still surface for me. And I don't have as much cause I love being able to travel and stuff for work, but I just, you know, I've just never blended fully into that idea of working in the nine to five sort of thing. I think that's why finding my flow and what I've done has really helped. Um, I think the, what, what I did learn was, and I think I've flagged this earlier, is that the experiences I had, the role, first of all, I had as a training manager for Contiki and for TravCorp in multiple ways in Europe, set me up professionally. And the experiences and my observations of 10 years is what I've brought to all my programs and content. And again, if I look back, I didn't know back then that that's

what was happening, but that's what's happened. Using my past experiences to kind of nurture my future and present and future and to keep learning and so those really what can i take from that that past life and use it in my current and future and that served me really well and i think it's just that philosophy i think this is a learning itself it doesn't matter let's say you're working right now you know entrepreneur you're doing a role you're looking at like the side thing or you want to do something else be your best for what you're doing right now because there's stuff you're learning in it even if you can't connect the dots or see it you are going to take things from that but if you switch off and chill or just kind of get bit lapsed a days ago you may miss out

be your best anyway with whatever you're doing you're going to nurture and use that in your future love it love it because everything you're doing today is an investment in your future whether you realize it or not that's uh completely beautifully even the challenges right even the challenges, even those, those failures, that's where you get your best learnings from sometimes is, is exactly that. And in fact, I can relate to that because when I left, um, TravCorp, so I went for Contiki, one of the main reasons was I actually didn't get a gig I really wanted at the time. And I was probably, I think back then it was probably a bit of a spat at the time and it was still the right decision, I think, to leave. The time was good, but

my drive at the time was I didn't quite get a gig I wanted and I left. Having said that, not getting that role has served me well again i just couldn't see at the time if i had taken that position i've gone down a different path i wouldn't have done the things i've done i wouldn't maybe written the books that i've written so the good and the bad experiences all hold some knowledge for us i love that let's drill into that a little bit more because i always uh love to get your thoughts on if you you know to reflect on on the journey so far what have been uh the most and i'll put in the investment terms what what has been your best investment today and what's been your worst investment today as you look back over that experience yeah and what have

you learned from both of those i i can they're very obvious the answers that spring to mind my best investment by a long shot has been investing in myself and continual development and it's something i always do yeah and no matter what's going on my life i'm always doing that i'm always reading, studying, doing something, expanding my own programs as well. So continual learning, continual growth. My worst investment by a long shot has been a very bad habit for life and it was exacerbated through my experience in Contiki with handling money, to be quite frank. You know, I had kind of poor influences when I was growing up and through school. I didn't necessarily appreciate the value of that. Then you move into this lifestyle of living on the road

and just living in the present moment and just kind of, and then use it and blow in, you know, you don't get paid a lot and then go blow that all on experiences. Not any, no real plan, no real thinking about the future, you know, in that regard. And then you add to that your natural traits. Some of us are mine have been, you know, like retail therapy. I didn't have a house. I've got this thing for nice suits. I've still got a wardrobe of my suits, but my worst habit and my worst to do with that has been a very slow and late appreciation of actually planning fiscally. And that's why I said to you, when it comes to that, investing in ourselves and resources and time and learning and growth, those are my paths. When it comes to fiscal wealth, I lean in

there to others, to experts, because I'm a novice, right? And I'm a late player in that field. So that's been the worst one. But here's the good news. You've recognized that very easily. And And I'm sensing that if you haven't already, you're probably talking to your eldest brother again about, okay, brother, what do I need to be doing to set myself up and secure my long-term future? So you're not like many who get to 63 or 64 and have what I call the oh shit super moment where they go, oh shit, my super's not going to be enough to do what I thought it was going to do. What the hell am I going to do now? I'm probably going to have to work for another 15 or 20 years. yeah uh you're sort of a at a vintage now mark where you've still got time on your hands and you've got the opportunity as using your own words to surround yourself with people that are

better than you at those aspects and then getting getting their guidance to get you on track absolutely and i think um again there's a couple things yes i have spoken my brother and other people because there's industries i work with like pipper and professionals in investment and property and all sorts. And so I'm surrounded by some really brilliant minds in that regard and I'm very fortunate so they can help. And again, though, I think if it's realizing it's being comfortable, not being hard on myself either for my past life and going, this is what I'm now doing. And I have continued to invest in my own business because those points of difference is what sets me up. I'm lucky I'm in a field where, you know, you can earn well through doing what

you do really well. And so it's, you know, it's not like going to the job and work where you've to go and do it 30 years and build up that way i can really start as you point out for the next five to ten years keep excelling at what i do and just be smarter with what i do with the returns on that that's really where i'm at in life and it's realizing that now so that's the journey i'm now on when it comes to certainly the future and and i love your the what you talk to in that self health wealth like the first two pills right the self yep do that all the time and the health and well-being, do that. And I think you say as well, you get the wealth comes when you've really got the other two in a good place. And that's really what I'm experiencing as well. I mean, that's

living proof. It's just to your point, it's a testament to those three pillars that you talked to. Absolutely. Yeah, brilliant, mate. I love that. Well, let's jump into the future a little minute and paint the story and the picture of what your ideal world and your ideal lifestyle does look like. And then talk to us around what you're investing in to either, you might be there already so what are you investing into to make it happen and keep it happening yeah no i wouldn't say i'm there already but i am sam on a path i think i think though here's what i've also learned is my future lifestyle it's funny yeah i want that comfortable life but over the years that's definitely changed yeah and i consider my own lifestyle is actually quite modest and i i see

i foresee that happening and continuing yeah but what i do see is by being investing in myself and having more success with my business, what that allows me to do is live a consistently comfortable, modest life, but make a bigger impact and legacy on the communities in which I live and serve as well. And I think that's what it, for me, I've got to that realization of, you know, I don't, I remember years ago, actually in sales training, somebody was in one of my programs and they turn around and said, oh man, you're a genius. You're brilliant. Just one thing I don't understand. why don't you have the boat and i to which to which i i said what makes you think i want a boat that's you're describing to me what you do was this is you can't tell me that's what i want to

do and that you so i'm i've kind of really got comfortable with a lifestyle for me is not about the boat in a harbor or six cars in a garage or palaces everywhere i'm comfortable with a modest life, but I do want to make a greater impact to the communities I serve. And that's the path I'm on is how can I make sure I'm investing in? So to your question, I continue investing in my business and acumen to make those models smarter, to get greater income for my business that I can then invest better pathways myself. And from talking to people in my circle, I envisage that will be things around property is a big one that's going to be for that one as well. My business is set up as a trust as well, which kind of helps. I mean, again, this is where you get advice from

accountants and all the rest of it. I take their input, but what it will also do is allow me to make greater impact into aspects of community that I want to make a better impact to. And that's certainly around fields that are aligned with what I do professionally, learning, learning for children, um, learning for children in remote communities, those sorts of things, because I've got a firm belief that, you know, if we, if we can nurture our kids, we've got far better adults running around. Therefore, investing in things like emotional intelligence with kids is a great way to start. Best time to start looking at that is not when you're 50. It's when you're 7, 8, 9, 10. So I think the short answer is continue investing in my business to differentiate it.

Continue investing in myself. Make sure that what I'm doing with the returns of that is smarter and then creating pathways to invest that to create greater wealth, not necessarily just for me, but for communities I serve. And that conveniently brings us to the end of part one of Mark Carter's great chat on adding value. In the next episode, part two will dive into the importance of value to investing, and Mark unpacks his definition of value and breaks down the five main elements of his value model,

as well as drawing our attention to the pitfalls of adopting a blinkist approach to the value of life. So look out for this as it reveals the secrets on how we can all add value in our lives. And before we go, if you're enjoying Get Invested, we'd love for you to leave a quick review on iTunes, Spotify, Google or whichever platform you get your podcast feed from as this helps in increasing the exposure in Get Invested

to other interested listeners like yourself. So I just want to thank you for that in advance. Thanks again and I look forward to leaving you smarter and smiling again next week. you get a summary of all this investment gold in the show notes just email me on hello at khgroup.com.au it's h-e-l-l-o at khgroup.com.au or check us out at www.bushymartin.com.au forward slash get invested i look forward to joining you next week for another episode of the Get Invested Podcast. So thanks for listening. And as always, dream as if you live forever and live as if you die tomorrow.